Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Archive for November, 2009

“Disgraced ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer to lecture at ethics center”

Life imitates The Onion: the madam in the Client Nine scandal is questioning the propriety of the invitation from Prof. Lawrence Lessig’s Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard. [NY Daily News] Spitzer, for those who’ve already forgotten, curried political favor with anti-libertarian feminist and legal services groups by helping lead a crusade to lengthen sentences for “johns”, then deftly dodged the harsh penalties that his own law has inflicted on many offenders less well connected than himself. Lately, by way of rehabilitating his image, he’s taken to the columns of publications like Slate to lecture the rest of us about things like respect for the rule of law. More: Above the Law, Greenfield (& welcome Chequer-Board readers).

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November 12 roundup

  • Judge cites Oregon elder abuse act in barring animal rights activists from harassing elderly furrier [Zick, Prawfsblawg]
  • After fraud accusations against Fort Lauderdale lawyer Scott Rothstein, politicos race to return his many donations [NYT, AmLaw Daily,
    DBR and more, Ashby Jones/WSJ Law Blog and more (Ponzi investments could exceed $1 billion, per FBI)]
  • Ontario court ruling may invite U.S. class action lawyers to take on more projects in Canada [Kevin LaCroix]
  • “Mississippi Cardiologist Won’t Go to Prison for Online Dating” [Balko, Freeland]
  • Manuscript in the mail: “Kings of Tort”, Alan Lange/Tom Dawson book on Dickie Scruggs and Paul Minor scandals, which now has its own website and will go on sale Dec. 2;
  • A “cultural institution destroyed” in Louisiana: more on proposed FDA ban on raw oysters [NYT, earlier]
  • Update on Google Books settlement [Sag, ConcurOp]
  • Mark Steyn on the Zack Christie case and other annals of knives-in-schools zero-tolerance [NRO, Steyn Online via Skenazy]

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School discipline quotas in Tucson

Heather Mac Donald in City Journal:

As part of its plan to comply with a federal desegregation order now decades old, Tucson’s school district adopted racial quotas in school discipline this summer. Schools that suspend or expel Hispanic and black students at higher rates than white students will now get a visit from a district “Equity Team” and will be expected to remedy those disparities by reducing their minority discipline rates.

What? They can’t comply by collaring and disciplining a random selection of additional white students?

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